GPs swamped by red tape means lack of eye contact with patients

GP consultations should be longer because red tape means doctors cannot spend
enough time listening to patients, a survey has found.

Four in ten doctors polled said there was so much administration to do during a consultation that they could not look patients in the face while listening to them.

They said the length of time of the average consultation needs to increase from 11 minutes to around 14 minutes, the poll conducted by Pulse magazine found. Six out of ten thought consultations should be between ten and 15 minutes long while 35 per cent thought they should be longer than that.

A third of the consultation is spend on administration the GPs said.

Prof Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of GPs said other healthcare staff should be used more in the surgery so doctors can increase the time they spend with patients to 15 or 20 minutes.

He told Pulse: "GPs will need to spend more time – particularly with the ageing population who have a number of different illnesses at the same time, but in order to do that it is right that GPs will have to have longer consultations."